How is the average middle aged former middle manager let alone a factory worker going to become a productive software developer?

You hit the nail on the head, it is not just blue collar workers that are getting the whack. With RPA, we are seeing a ton of white collar workers at risk too. In fact they are in more jeopardy since software moves a lot faster than machines.

So instead of trying to save the jobs which are done, spend time coming up with other solutions.

Of course, Sanders was the one who proposed the guarantee job program where everyone was guaranteed a job. So the idea is to create more useless jobs just so people have one?

Asinine.